East Sussex author Diny van Kleeff offers her Little Learner Activity Detectives

Diny, aged 47, of Hellingly, said: “My Little Learner Activity Detectives books are based on one of the activities that I suggest in my home learning parent guide, The Nurturing Way to Teach Your Child to Read.

“The books were inspired by the I Spy books of the 70s, where you ‘collect’ the things you see by marking them in a book. I used to make printed pages of letters or words for my own children and encourage them search for them on street signs, shop signs etc when we went out for walks or to the shops. It was a great distraction and helped them to become familiar with letters, words and numbers in a fun way.

“Because of lockdown, and not being able to teach my creative writing classes anymore, I decided to make my little worksheets into proper books that parents could use with their children, which is becoming increasingly necessary with the lack of school and a probable increase in home educating.

“The books are aimed at children from about the age of three, up to around age seven, but it entirely depends on the child and their abilities. The books are all small enough to fit in a handbag or child’s backpack and there is a certificate of completion at the back of each one.

“Each book is a standalone, but covers a different aspect of learning to read – from first letters, through to phonic blends and then keywords or with the numbers. There are first numbers to 20 and number bonds to ten. There will be more books coming out soon as I see a great need for home learning resources.”

The Little Learner Activity books are available separately on Amazon: Letter Detectives; Number Detectives; Phonics Detectives; Keyword Detectives; and Number Bond Detectives.